


Pathways

by iodhadh



Category: Dragon Age: Origins - Awakening
Genre: Avvar Culture and Customs, Canon-Typical Violence, Darkspawn, F/M, Fade Shenanigans, Love Confessions, Major Character Injury, Velanna vs. Feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-23
Updated: 2017-11-23
Packaged: 2019-02-04 17:07:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12775560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iodhadh/pseuds/iodhadh
Summary: When the Warden-Commander sends her along with Nathaniel to negotiate a tithe of resources from one of Amaranthine's most irritating nobles, Velanna isn't expecting much more than a couple days of dealing with insufferable shemlen nonsense. That the noble in question has recently discovered old Avvar ruins under his estate is only a minor point of interest.Then the darkspawn break through into the newly excavated chambers in the middle of the night. Now, trapped underground and with a strange Avvar spirit apparently unwilling to leave her alone, Velanna will be brought to the very limits of what she thought she was willing to endure—but with Nathaniel's life hanging in the balance, her choices are running out...





	Pathways

**Author's Note:**

  * For [serenityfails](https://archiveofourown.org/users/serenityfails/gifts).



> Hey Katie I heard it was your birthday or something, wow what an amazing coincidence.
> 
> Many thanks to Toft for wrangling and Avvar expertise, Guile & Gall for a very productive brainstorming session, Jadis for a last-minute plot hole check, and literally everyone across two separate Discord servers for listening to me yell extensively about the metrical conventions of Avvar verse.
> 
> Enjoy the fic, with all my love (who could I be, it is a mystery).

Velanna looked up at the estate looming in front of her. “Ugh,” she said, in tones of finality.

Two paces ahead, her travelling companion paused, looking back over his shoulder. “What’s the matter?” Nathaniel said.

“This is stupid!” Velanna said. “And pointless. I don’t even know why I’m here.”

As usual, Nathaniel’s only reaction to her irritable outburst was subdued amusement. “It’s just for one night,” he said. “The Wardens need resources, and Lord Guy owes us. It’ll be fine, you’ll see.”

Sometimes Velanna wished he wasn’t so patient with her. It wasn’t even that he treated her with kid gloves, which she could have justifiably objected to. He was just—serene. “Ugh,” she said again. “Fine. Let’s get this over with.”

The soldiers on the gate raised their arms in respectful greeting as they passed, waving them through to the inner courtyard. An elven servant was already trotting out to meet them. “Welcome, Grey Wardens,” she said. “Please, come this way.”

Velanna followed Nathaniel inside, glaring at the hallway, the tapestries, the chandeliers, the paintings, every doorway they passed, and the annoyingly relaxed set of Nathaniel’s shoulders. Only the servants escaped her ire. It was impossible to miss that every one she saw was also an elf.

Lord Guy was coming down the ornate staircase when they entered the central receiving hall of the estate—no doubt having timed it on purpose to look as impressive as possible. Velanna snorted, not entirely inaudibly.

“Welcome, welcome,” Lord Guy said expansively, coming forward to clasp Nathaniel’s hands in some human greeting custom. “What an honour it is to have the Grey Wardens in my home.”

“Funny,” Velanna said, before Nathaniel could speak up and prevent her, “you didn’t seem happy to see us at all last month when we heard reports of possible darkspawn activity in your fields.”

The shem’s smile faltered slightly at that. “The spring planting is a very delicate time for Amaranthine’s farms,” he protested. “You must understand, I couldn’t have a horde of Grey Wardens tramping all over my fields—think of all the lost profits!”

“Profits?! What of all the lost lives?” Velanna said. “You wouldn’t see any profits at all if your fields were overrun by darkspawn and all your workers killed!”

“What my companion means,” Nathaniel interrupted, before her tirade could really get going, “is that the Wardens are glad of the welcome—belated as it might be—and we hope we can continue to work together with the nobles of Amaranthine to contain the darkspawn threat.”

“That is _not_ what I meant—” Velanna began.

But Lord Guy was beaming at Nathaniel, seemingly having decided to ignore her. “I couldn’t agree more,” he said. “Amaranthine is still recovering, after all. It’s very important that we act as one in these matters.”

“We are glad of this opportunity to discuss the future safety of the arling with you, Lord Guy,” Nathaniel said, shooting Velanna a significant glance.

Velanna did nothing to modulate her expression. Lord Guy’s gaze skittered to her, then back away, evidently finding it much safer to just talk to Nathaniel. “I’m happy to help, of course,” he said.

“To that end, might we consider moving somewhere more private? We have much to go over.”

“What? No, no, I absolutely must give you a tour first!” Lord Guy said. “We just finished an excavation and restoration of the lower levels, you know. You simply must see it.”

“This is pointless,” Velanna began, but Nathaniel stopped her with a brief touch to her shoulder.

“We’d be delighted,” he said.

She bit her tongue around a growl.

* * *

Lord Guy led them through the estate, babbling his way down portrait galleries and up sweeping staircases, through libraries and into sitting rooms. Velanna stopped paying attention after the first two minutes. It was all, every part of it, excruciatingly boring shemlen nonsense, and she did not care even the slightest bit.

Nathaniel seemed to, asking questions with a politely interested enthusiasm, but Velanna wasn’t fooled. What she would once have dismissed as sheer noble stuffiness she now recognized as the diplomatic face Nathaniel put on when he had to suffer through tedium. It made her feel slightly better to know she wasn’t alone in hating the entire exercise, but she, unlike Nathaniel, did not have the patience to pretend otherwise. Fortunately Lord Guy seemed happy to go on ignoring her, just as he ignored the elven servants they passed in the hallways.

At last they circled back to the main hall. In the time they’d been away, the servants had thrown open the double doors to the right of the staircase and lit the candelabras that illuminated it. There was another wide staircase there, this one leading down, with polished floors and neatly finished walls—obviously meant for the benefit of guests.

Lord Guy had obviously been anticipating this. “I think you’ll be very interested in the results of our excavation, Grey Wardens. It’s quite marvellous.”

“I doubt it,” Velanna said, not bothering to keep her voice down.

The stupid shem was still doing his utmost to ignore her. “Shall we?” he said.

“Please, lead the way,” Nathaniel said.

Velanna was expecting yet more of the same and was prepared to check out entirely—so she wasn’t expecting Nathaniel to come to an abrupt halt when they reached the bottom of the stairs. She caught herself just in time, regaining her balance and leaning around him to peer at whatever had shocked him so.

“This is an old Avvar settlement,” Nathaniel said, the surprise apparent in his voice.

Lord Guy clapped his hands once in delight. “It’s wonderful, isn’t it? Of course, the Avvar were prevalent in this area before modern times, but not many of their settlements have survived. I believe Vigil’s Keep is built on Avvar ruins, is it not? I’m afraid my ruins aren’t nearly so extensive, but I think you’ll be impressed regardless.”

“We found quite a few unsavoury things in the Vigil’s ruins,” Nathaniel said. “They also served as a pathway for darkspawn to break in and slaughter much of the order. This isn’t something to take lightly, Lord Guy.”

The noble, however, seemed immune to Nathaniel’s concerns. “We took every possible precaution in the excavation, I assure you,” he said. “We found nothing suspicious, and the walls are quite secure. Please, see for yourselves.”

“Would these precautions be anything like the ones you took with the darkspawn hole in your lands?” Velanna muttered.

Only Nathaniel heard her. He cast her a pointed look as they followed Lord Guy the rest of the way down the stairs—one he had obviously intended to convey exasperation, but Velanna was maliciously delighted to recognize amusement in it as well.

“Now this first area,” Lord Guy was happily declaiming, all unawares of the silent communication going on behind him, “my experts believe was a living space—most likely for their priest, or whatever they called them. We found a number of fascinating artifacts. The Avvar really were an amazing people.”

“Are,” Nathaniel said.

“What?”

“You meant to say the Avvar _are_ an amazing people. Their culture is thriving in the Frostback Mountains.”

“Oh, yes, yes, of course,” Lord Guy said. Velanna scoffed, but he didn’t seem to hear her. “In any case, take a look at the items we found. They were wonderfully preserved.”

The room was round, low, and lit with torches. It was constructed from layered stone, fit together apparently without mortar; the only exits were the staircase, behind them, and an arched doorway, just ahead. A central pole supported the roof, carved from some ancient tree trunk. Velanna laid her hand on it curiously as she passed, sending out a brief probe of magic. It was slow to respond, nearly petrified with age—almost more rock than wood. At a guess it had been felled some two thousand years before.

The rest of the room was taken up by carved wooden plinths, decidedly modern in construction; the varnish hadn’t even finished curing on some of them. Lord Guy’s _fascinating artifacts_ were on display here: glazed ceramic pots and copper tools and necklaces strung with bright glass beads and twists of gold. All of it was obviously very old, the tools primitive in shape and the pottery partially crumbled or pieced back together with a recent—and imperfectly matched—clay patchwork, but it was beautiful for all that. Velanna couldn’t help but feel the Avvar deserved better than this shemlen noble’s basement.

“This is very fine work,” Nathaniel said, ever the diplomat.

“It is, isn’t it?” Lord Guy said, sounding as pleased as if he had been responsible for the ancient Avvar pots himself. Velanna supposed he thought he was. “It’s the next room, however, where the workmanship truly shines. If you would care to step forward?”

They made their way through a short hallway into the next room. This one was larger, soaring to a rounded arch above their heads, and had three smaller rooms spaced evenly around its circumference. The items on display here were more fanciful, statuettes and delicate gold jewellery and ornately etched weapons, and despite herself Velanna drifted closer, reaching out to run a finger along the carved outline of a stone bear.

“What is all this?” she said.

Almost immediately she regretted speaking, because Lord Guy looked insufferably smug at having gotten a comment out of her that was neither belligerent nor scathing. “We believe this was a temple to one of the Avvar gods,” he said. He gestured forward. “That room has a quaint little shrine in it, and the other two have graves—probably for their leaders and heroes. These are their offerings and burial goods. Incredible, aren’t they?”

Velanna snatched her hand back. “You took things out of their _graves?_ What kind of disrespectful—”

But the shem bastard had gone right back to ignoring her. “We did some reconstruction, of course,” he said. “These Avvar were very skilled, for barbarians, but their work wasn’t up to proper Fereldan standards. The ceiling, for example…”

“These ruins are very ancient, Lord Guy. You can’t expect them to have been in perfect condition,” Nathaniel said.

He was apparently determined to salvage the conversation. Velanna didn’t know why he was wasting his breath. And by the Creators, if she had to listen to another of Lord Guy’s patronizing remarks, she would—

She stalked off towards the shrine room before they all had to find out how that thought would end.

The doors on the little room were distinctly Fereldan in style—no doubt more of Lord Guy’s _improvements_. Velanna made a disparaging noise as she passed them, lifting her gaze to take in the intended contents of the shrine instead. It wasn’t much, but what there was was striking. Stylized animal carvings decorated the walls and the pillars that supported the ceiling, and a low, squared-off altar sat at the centre of the room. Just behind it, the natural focus of her gaze, stood the statue.

The god these Avvars had worshipped took the form of a human man, powerfully built and broad across the shoulders. It was hard to judge his exact height—the statue stood on a plinth that came to Velanna’s hip—but he was tall, taller even than Nathaniel, and made more so by the pair of branching antlers that sprouted from his temples. He wore furs tied around his legs and hips and thrown over his head like a hood, but his chest was bare, emphasizing his impressive musculature. The carving style was strange, but also compelling—fluid and graceful, more symbolic than lifelike. Only the barest detail was given to his features, but he had an undeniable presence. The weight of an unfamiliar history was heavy on her shoulders.

The plinth, too, had been carved with a loving care. Abstract representations of grasses twined around the god’s feet, and tree branches wove themselves into a sort of latticed bowl at the front of the plinth. Irritation temporarily forgotten, Velanna crouched to examine it. She was sure she could feel a whisper of magic threading through the openings…

“Stunning, wouldn’t you say?” Lord Guy’s voice said from the doorway. Velanna stifled a snarl. Just when she thought she’d gotten a moment to herself—

“It is beautiful,” came Nathaniel’s voice.

“I’m quite proud of it,” the noble continued. “Though we haven’t been able to figure out what that basket was used for. I had thought it was meant for offerings, but the gaps are too large. Still—quite a magnificent statue.”

The man was an idiot. It was clearly a brazier—but if he hadn’t figured that out, Velanna thought spitefully, she certainly wasn’t about to tell him.

“Congratulations, Lord Guy,” Nathaniel said, his patience sounding decidedly ragged around the edges. “Truly, these are impressive finds.”

“It is rather incredible, isn’t it?” Lord Guy said, with palpably false modesty. “Now, please, I’d be honoured if you would join me for dinner. We can discuss the security of the arling as we eat.”

“Give us another moment to admire the artifacts, if you would? We’ll join you presently.”

“Of course,” Lord Guy said genially. “Take your time. My servants can escort you to the dining room.” And then he bustled off, leaving Velanna and Nathaniel alone in the shrine room.

Slowly Velanna got to her feet. When she was certain the nobleman was gone, she let out her breath in a huff. “Shemlen,” she said, “are utterly insufferable.”

Nathaniel flashed her a wry smile. “Normally I’d take offense,” he said, “but in this case I’m inclined to agree.”

“He’s such a stuck-up, condescending prig!” Velanna said. “And what is he so impressed with himself for? All he did was own land with Avvar ruins on it! As if the Avvar didn’t do all the work. And they were smarter than him, not that that’s difficult,” she added. She flung her arm towards the base of the statue. “He can’t even figure out what a brazier is!”

Nathaniel’s smile had lost its sharp edge as she ranted, and now he looked—almost fond. “Got it out of your system, my lady?” he said. “Do you think you can you endure dinner?”

Velanna scoffed, but he was right: she did feel slightly better. “If I must,” she said. Then, eyeing the brazier speculatively, she lit it with a burst of magic, flames crackling satisfyingly over her fingers. “There. _Now_ I’ve got it out of my system.”

“My lady,” Nathaniel said, biting back a grin, and bowed her out of the room.

* * *

Dinner was a stupid, ostentatious display of noble wealth. Velanna sat at the table with Nathaniel, Lord Guy, his wife, their two young children, and a noble friend whose name she hadn’t bothered to remember, and wondered why the idiot shemlen thought she’d be impressed by this. She glared at her place setting and all its myriad forks and spoons, and contemplated how they would react if she just ignored them all and ate with her hands.

Nathaniel—of course—seemed perfectly at ease, and was doing his best to remind Lord Guy of what he and Velanna had actually come for. “The Wardens’ recent efforts have been quite time-consuming, as I’m sure you’re aware,” he was saying. “They were, after all, made to secure an entrance to the Deep Roads that had opened up on your own lands. We’ve found our resources sadly depleted.”

“That is the problem with maintaining defences,” Lord Guy agreed. “All that work and expense, and you only know you’ve succeeded if something _doesn’t_ happen.” He speared a slice of beef, raising it to his mouth and taking a delicate bite. “Warden-Commander Tabris is a resourceful woman. I’m sure she’ll have you back at full capacity in no time.”

“And what about your excavations?” Velanna said. “Those must have been time-consuming and costly as well.”

“Of course,” Lord Guy said. “But it is part of the nobility’s duty to preserve the culture and heritage of the region. No cost is too great.”

“Hm, yes, I’m sure you’d be happy to have that acknowledged.”

On the other side of the table there was a brief clatter of silverware. Lord Guy’s wife made an offended sound, quickly smothered. Velanna stared across the table at her, taking a malicious pleasure in knowing she was too polite to make a scene.

“Your ruins are quite impressive,” Nathaniel was saying. “I’m sure the Commander would be pleased to tour the premises herself, but of course you understand she’s very busy keeping Amaranthine—and all of Ferelden—safe from the darkspawn.”

“Of course,” Lord Guy said. “Still, it is a shame she doesn’t have time for the sort of parties liege lords normally get to host. Some of them have been quite spectacular!”

Velanna tried to picture Warden-Commander Tabris hosting the sort of shemlen party the nobility was partial to and had to bite back a sharp bark of laughter. The Commander disliked humans—and especially nobles—at least as much as she did.

“I think the Commander prefers to focus on… practical matters,” Nathaniel said diplomatically. “She has a very important job, and the backing of her vassals is paramount.”

“And she has my full support, of course,” Lord Guy said.

“In that case,” Velanna said acidly, “you shouldn’t have any problem with sharing your resources with the Wardens.”

Lord Guy’s unnamed noble friend slammed her fork down. “How dare you!” she snapped.

“Lady Morag, please,” said Lord Guy’s wife.

Lord Guy was staring at her with an offended expression. “I don’t like your implication, Warden Velanna,” he said stiffly. “I will do whatever I can to support my liege lord, of course, but I can’t simply provide supplies at a moment’s notice. I would have to make a thorough accounting of my storerooms and my budget for the year. Running a fief is a constant balancing act, you know!”

Velanna opened her mouth, prepared to tell him exactly where he could stick his _accounting_ , but before she could speak Nathaniel laid his hand on her arm, giving it a warning squeeze under the table. She turned her glare on him as he said, perfectly polite, “Yes, of course, Lord Guy. We understand entirely.”

Velanna swallowed down a scream.

* * *

They had been given a pair of guest rooms to sleep in, and Velanna retired to hers at the first possible opportunity, thoroughly glad to get away from these nobles and their self-righteousness. As she began stripping off her armour, she surveyed the room—one far more ostentatiously appointed than anywhere she had ever slept before—and considered whether she could get away with stomping around and breaking things until she felt better. There were certainly enough stupid knickknacks and elegant vases in the room to break.

Fortunately, she wasn’t given the chance to truly test Lord Guy’s hospitality. She had scarcely been in the room five minutes when someone knocked on her door.

“What do you want?” she demanded, then immediately regretted it. Lord Guy’s servants didn’t deserve her spite. From the look in the kitchen girls’ eyes as they had brought out the dinner courses, many of them might have fought her for the honour of strangling the man.

She went to the door, already speaking as she pulled it open. “I—apologize, I shouldn’t have—oh,” she said, realizing it was Nathaniel who stood there. “It’s you. What do you want?”

As ever, he didn’t react to her needling. “May I come in, my lady?”

Velanna huffed. “Fine,” she said. She stepped back, letting him through the door, and stalked back over to the desk to go back to disarming. “You can tell me what the point of us coming here was, if you’re not going to actually bother putting any effort into getting anything from this shemlen fool.”

Nathaniel shut the door, chuckling to himself.

“What?” Velanna snapped. It had been a long day, and her patience—never much to speak of even on the best of days—had long since worn away. “What’s so funny?”

“It’s just,” Nathaniel said, still smiling, “you’re saying all the things I’d always wished I could say as a child.”

“Well, why don’t you, then?” Velanna said, but her anger had cooled slightly at the expression of sympathy. “We could get so much more done if you would actually press for it!”

But Nathaniel was shaking his head. “I know how nobles operate,” he said. “There’s a very good chance that would get us nothing at all. You saw how offended Lord Guy was when you asked him straight out.”

Velanna growled through her teeth. “I hate nobles!” she said, glamming her gauntlet down on the desk. “I have no idea why the Commander sent me to do this!”

Nathaniel just shook his head again, but now he looked amused. “The Commander knew exactly what she was doing,” he said. “You being so insistent makes me look harmless in comparison. It lets me be more direct than I otherwise could without seeming rude.”

Velanna scoffed. “I cannot believe that _this_ is direct.”

“It is,” he assured her. “I’ve made it quite plain what we’re here for, and given him plenty of opportunity to make an offer to provision the Wardens.”

“Yes, and he just keeps deflecting!” Velanna said. “This is getting us nowhere!”

“No,” Nathaniel said. “This is a courtesy. If Lord Guy doesn’t take this opportunity to negotiate gracefully with us, it’ll be the Warden-Commander who visits him next. She’s his liege lord, and it’ll be much harder for him to say no to her—not to mention that she could just outright order him to turn his supplies over. He knows that. The fact that he’s not taking the chance to make an offer when he has one is only going to make things worse for him.”

Begrudgingly, Velanna had to admit it made sense. “Fine,” she said. “But I still hate this sort of thing.”

“I understand,” Nathaniel said, and Velanna was surprised to hear how fervently he meant it. “I feel much the same way. And I suppose I owe you an apology—I should have realized you wouldn’t be aware of the typical nuances of feudal negotiation.”

“Oh,” she said, momentarily taken aback. “Well. Apology accepted, I suppose.”

“Good,” Nathaniel said, seeming genuinely to mean it. “Now, I came to tell you what to expect tomorrow. We’ll have breakfast with Lord Guy and his family in the morning. Then he’ll probably want to tour us around his lands a bit. That’ll be the last opportunity he has to negotiate with us.” He smiled faintly. “Can you endure that much?”

Velanna sighed heavily. “I suppose,” she said. “But only because you asked so nicely.”

“I’m glad to hear that,” he said, very solemn. “In that case I will bid you goodnight, my lady.”

Velanna waved him off. “Until tomorrow, then.”

Nathaniel left the room, closing the door quietly behind himself. Velanna turned to the overstuffed bed she was expected to sleep on, glaring at it poisonously, then sighed and extinguished the candles with a brief flare of magic. Disrobing quickly in the dark, she climbed onto the bed, curling up on the firmest patch of mattress she could find and letting herself drift slowly into sleep.

* * *

She stood at the centre of a village. All around her, shemlen went about their business, calling back and forth to each other as they worked or walked or chased animals away from their gardens. Those who passed close to her nodded genially, seeming unsurprised to see her there even though she looked as unlike them as it was possible to be—they were tall, these humans, with solid builds and outlandishly styled hair, all of them braided and painted and dressed in clean furs.

She cast around, looking for a point of reference she recognized, but found none. The buildings around her did look faintly familiar, but she couldn’t have said why: certainly these round stone huts with their woven thatch roofs looked nothing like the blocky houses the people of Amaranthine lived in. She had no idea where she was—and no memory of how she’d gotten there.

“This is the Beyond,” she said.

“Yes,” one of the spirits nearest her said, and she turned to see a man even taller than the others, garbed in rich furs and crowned with a pair of graceful antlers. “This memory is all, now, that remains of my hold.”

Velanna blinked. “You’re the Avvar god,” she said. “The statue I saw.”

“Yes,” he said again, grinning now. His canine teeth were unsettlingly long. “And you are the shaman who lit the fire.”

Velanna felt herself reaching for her staff, but of course it wasn’t with her. “What do you want?” she said.

“I?” the spirit said. He seemed genuinely puzzled by the question—puzzled, and faintly amused. “I want nothing. What do you want?”

“What are you talking about?” Velanna snapped.

Now the lines of a frown creased his forehead, and he tilted his head at her curiously, a strangely birdlike motion. “The fire was yours, yes? The offering brazier?”

“What?” Velanna yelped. “No! I mean, yes, I lit the fire, but—I wasn’t asking for anything! I didn’t know it would—no! I just wanted to show up that stupid shemlen noble!”

“I do not know this ‘shemlen,’” the spirit said. He shook his head. “Why you lit the brazier does not matter. I wish to grant you a boon, regardless. It has been long ages since anyone has remembered me in the waking world.”

“I’m not letting you give me anything,” Velanna said. “You can’t trick me that easily! I’ve been dealing with spirits since I was a child. You’d ask for something when I least expected it, and I’d have to give it up.”

But at that the spirit just looked even more puzzled. “When least expected, no. I would ask before. The offering is the call, only. You must do more, to win the favour of a god.”

Velanna huffed. “That’s what I thought,” she said. “Well, I don’t want anything! And I have my own gods. I don’t need you.”

“As the shaman says,” the spirit said, clearly willing to humour her. “If that is so, I will grant you leave for now.”

“You’ll grant me leave forever!” Velanna said. “All I want is for you to leave me alone!”

“Yes,” the spirit said, still smiling good-naturedly. “The shaman asks for nothing. Very well. But for nothing I will still give this: you wish to wake now.”

Velanna scowled. “What are you playing at?”

“You wish to wake now,” the spirit repeated. “You have work to do.”

And before she could demand answers a second time, the world went black.

* * *

Velanna woke to the sound of the hue and cry ringing in her ears. Close by—far too close—she could sense a horde of darkspawn.

Grey Warden training was thorough, and her reaction was almost instinctive. She was out of bed and throwing on her armour before she came fully awake, her brain catching up with her body only after she’d yanked on her leggings and tunic and was stepping into her boots. She threw her padded overtunic around her shoulders and grabbed her staff, running out the door as she pulled on her gloves. Next door Nathaniel had done the same, and they swiftly did up the last of each other’s buckles without a word, then ran together for the stairs.

They met one of Lord Guy’s soldiers on his way up. “Grey Wardens, you’re awake!” he gasped. “Praise the Maker!”

“What’s going on?” Velanna demanded.

“There are darkspawn in the house—” he began.

“We know!” Velanna said.

“Where are they coming from?” Nathaniel interrupted.

The soldier shook his head. “I don’t know. My captain said they came up through the house—”

“By the Void,” Nathaniel cursed. “I told him that basement was a risk!”

“Come on!” Velanna said, and they were off again, racing down the stairs as fast as their feet could carry them.

The tainted buzz of approaching darkspawn reached a fever pitch as they burst into the main hall, where sure enough a knot of the creatures was swarming up from the Avvar ruins. The soldiers fighting them were in disarray, and there were as many on the ground as there were still standing. Velanna let out a shout and a blast of flame as Nathaniel strung his bow in a single rapid movement, and they fell on the darkspawn before the creatures had the chance to turn.

The unexpected assault caught them off-guard, and the few darkspawn who had made it to the main level went down swiftly under their combined firepower. “Close the door!” Velanna yelled, and the soldiers scurried to obey, slamming it on the ones Velanna could feel swarming just below.

The last of the darkspawn hit the floor and for a moment there was silence in the hall, though the noise of the hue and cry still sounded outside. Then one of the soldiers sagged against his friend with a gasp and the spell was broken.

“Grey Wardens,” the man said. “Thank the Maker.”

“Who’s in charge here?” Velanna said.

One of the women pointed to the floor: a corpse.

“Right,” Nathaniel said. “You, then. Round up as many of your fellows as you can and secure the rest of the basement accesses, then sweep the estate from top to bottom to make sure there are no darkspawn in the building.”

“Yes, ser,” the woman said immediately, looking relieved just to have someone telling her what to do.

“Send a messenger to Vigil’s Keep,” Nathaniel continued. “Your fastest rider. And Velanna and I will go into the basement to find where they’re coming from and stem the tide. We’ll need whatever volunteers are willing to come with us.”

Half a dozen of the soldiers stepped up in the end; the rest scattered to tend to the security of the estate. Nathaniel and Velanna took up the mage’s and archer’s positions flanking the rear of the company, and they advanced on the basement door.

“About a dozen,” Velanna said tersely. One of the soldiers looked around with wide eyes.

“Steady,” Nathaniel said. “On three. One, two…”

Two soldiers yanked the doors open. A swarm of darkspawn stumbled out, running directly into the fireball Velanna had launched at them. Two died immediately, succumbing with a screech to the engulfing flames; another went down with an arrow through its throat. The soldiers fell on the rest, hacking at the creatures with a frenzied sort of energy while Nathaniel kept up a steady rain of arrows and Velanna sent blasts of power left and right into the fray.

The flames had died down by the time they killed the last of them, and Velanna wasted no time. “Go!” she said. “Don’t let any more get out!”

The soldiers obeyed, charging forwards, and met three more of the creatures on the stairs—but the enclosed space was especially good for Velanna’s fire spells, and their party had the advantage of the high ground. They dispatched the stragglers quickly, and made it down to the lower level with nothing more than scrapes and bruises.

The first chamber was wrecked, Lord Guy’s fine pottery shattered and the room teeming with darkspawn. The walls here were unbreached, the darkspawn swarming in through the hallway from the other room, but there were more than enough of them to occupy their attention. Velanna lit the torches with a burst of flame, and as one the darkspawn snarled and turned on them, surging to the attack.

The fight was chaos. There was no hope of keeping the mage and archer out of the fray, and Velanna soon gave it up as a lost cause. She ducked and wove around the darkspawn, her Warden’s senses often the only thing that kept her in one piece. As the creatures swarmed to surround her she summoned vines from the earth, tearing them up through the stone, and rent the darkspawn apart. She infected them indiscriminately with walking bombs, threw misdirection hexes as often as she could, and tore life force from those few that actually managed to strike her. The cracked flagstones she ripped up out of the ground, flinging them across the room to crush the darkspawn against the walls. And when all else failed, she had her fires.

At last the tide broke. Velanna caught her breath, straightening up to assess the damage. Nathaniel, of course, had fared as well as she. One of their volunteers was staggering to his feet, and four were standing still, looking universally surprised to be alive. The last lay fallen on the floor among her enemies. One of the others spotted her body and let out a cry, stumbling across the room to fall to her knees beside her lost friend.

Despite knowing that the volunteers had accepted the risks, Velanna felt a twinge of guilt. If she’d been keeping better watch—if the fight hadn’t been such a mess—she might have been able to save the woman’s life. But then again, perhaps not: her healing abilities were rudimentary at best, and the wounds the soldier had suffered looked severe. She may not have been able to do anything after all.

She caught the eye of one of the others and jerked her head at the fallen soldier and the woman mourning her. “Get them away from the corpses,” she said, hefting her staff and starting forward. Behind her, the soldiers lifted their dead companion’s body away from the field of battle; beside her, Nathaniel fell in as they scouted ahead to find the source of the breach.

The problem was immediately apparent as soon as they walked into the temple room. The rightmost burial chamber was now the entrance to a yawning darkspawn hole, and the sarcophagi had been shoved aside to make room for the advancing horde. Nathaniel and Velanna stood on the edge of the tunnel, peering into the darkness, as the soldiers clustered up behind them with wide eyes.

“I wonder,” Nathaniel said quietly, “if we might find the other end of this tunnel at the hole we recently plugged up in Lord Guy’s fields.”

“You’re probably right,” Velanna said in disgust. “Wonderful. What do we do now? We can’t very well go charging off into the Deep Roads when there might still be other entrances on the estate!”

“We might have to settle for a patch job until the Commander gets here,” Nathaniel said. “Cave in this tunnel and stay on watch for now, and wait for reinforcements before we try anything more permanent.”

“Ugh,” Velanna said. She stared off into the dark, still feeling the distant hum of darkspawn moving. “You might be right. I hate half-finished work.”

Nathaniel turned back to the soldiers. “Go find whoever you have in your unit who can arrange a cave-in—engineers, sappers, whatever you’ve got. We’re safe for the moment. Velanna and I will keep watch.”

The soldiers wasted no time in vacating the premises. Nathaniel left Velanna to watch the tunnel alone, returning scant minutes later having retrieved his unbroken arrows. They stood guard together until the soldiers returned, two engineers and several shovels and picks in tow. Nathaniel laid his bow aside and joined them, and the whole group set to it with a will. Velanna stayed on guard, alert for the approach of darkspawn.

They were almost done when the humming pitched sharply upward. “They’re coming,” she snapped. “Hurry!”

The soldiers picked up their pace, frenetic now, but it wasn’t enough. Without warning a pair of shrieks burst out of the tunnel. Two of the soldiers went down immediately, their throats torn out; the rest scrambled back, dropping their shovels as more darkspawn came pouring out of the tunnel after them.

Nathaniel had grabbed his bow, and now he and Velanna advanced, sending arrows and bolts of energy at the creatures in furiously synchronized unison. Darkspawn screeched and staggered back under the onslaught. For a moment it looked like they might even succeed.

“Wait!” yelled one of the engineers, and then there was an ominous grinding and cracking of stone.

Blocks started to fall from the tunnel, crashing down into the crush of darkspawn, and briefly it seemed like it may have been a blessing—but then the entrance started to crumble open, and more of the creatures came swarming out of the hole. As the floor shook, rocks started to tumble from the ceiling.

“Run!” Velanna yelled. “We’ll hold them off!”

The soldiers scrambled for the hall. Grimly Velanna held her ground, bolts of arcane power bursting from the end of her staff as she pushed the darkspawn back.

“Velanna—” Nathaniel said, his voice urgent.

“Not yet!”

The last of the soldiers was through the tunnel. Velanna threw a wall of fire at the darkspawn, flames pouring from her staff and her hands both, then broke away with a gasp. “Go!”

They bolted for the exit. Rocks were raining down all around them. Velanna could see the hallway just ahead. They could make it—

And then there was a thunderous crash and the world went sideways in a cascade of stone and sound.

It seemed to go on forever. She curled up as tightly as she could, the feel of Nathaniel’s arms braced around her as rocks battered their bodies the only thing she was conscious of. Then at last the tumult slowed and she tore upright, choking on the cloud of dust as she frantically checked him over.

“Nathaniel!” she cried. “Are you alright?!”

“I’m okay,” he said, coughing as he dragged himself upright. “I’m okay. You?”

“I’m fine, I—” she said, and stopped.

Behind him, the dust had settled, revealing the hallway—or what was left of it. The fall of rock had blocked it entirely, huge slabs of stone crushing their only exit. Some of them were larger than Velanna’s body.

Eyes still watering from the dust, Nathaniel turned to follow her gaze. For a brief moment he went still. “Oh no.”

“We need—we need to get up,” Velanna said. She could feel the approaching hum of another wave of darkspawn.

They hauled each other to their feet, backing up until they found a stable piece of floor free of debris. Nathaniel’s bow had miraculously survived the rockfall; Velanna’s staff was battered, but the crystal lit without complaint when she experimentally raised it. They glanced to each other, their eyes communicating all the things they didn’t want to say. There were a lot of darkspawn coming, and they were alone now. It was no longer a matter of if they fell, but when.

“You have lyrium?” Nathaniel said, voice low.

“Some,” Velanna said, just as quiet.

They were silent for a moment, and then Nathaniel said, “Velanna, I just want you to know—”

“Don’t,” she snapped. “Don’t say it. We’ll get through this. We just have to hold out long enough for reinforcements to come. We’ll be _fine_.”

Reinforcements were still hours away, and they both knew it—but he didn’t argue.

The first darkspawn poked its head out of the hole. Immediately Nathaniel put an arrow through its face, and it fell back into the darkness without a sound. A second followed suit, and received the same treatment. And then there were more, and more, and there was no time left to think as battle came down upon them.

Velanna threw a blanket of flame across the tunnel entrance. Some of the horde was caught in it and fell, shrieking, but their fellows crossed the fires on the backs of their fallen brethren. They swarmed up by the dozens, falling on them with a frenzied screeching, and it was all Velanna could do not to be ripped from Nathaniel’s side. She slung hexes and walking bombs and blasts of pure energy with indiscriminate force, hurled stones and fireballs into the fray, ripped vines from the ground and yanked life force from the creatures at every chance she had. No matter how many fell before her, there were always more. Nathaniel was relentless, every missile loosed another darkspawn dead, but he only had so many arrows and they could only last so long. All too soon Velanna could feel herself starting to flag as well. She downed a vial of lyrium and fought on.

Countless darkspawn had died already when the melee parted, and an alpha hurlock threw itself forward, barrelling directly for them. Velanna hurled a stone at it and summoned up all the fire she had in her, but it barely slowed. Nathaniel’s first shot took it in the shoulder, but the second went flying past as it charged for him, and then it fell on him in a single-minded rage. He went down under the onslaught, struggling fiercely all the while.

“Nathaniel!” Velanna shouted, fighting towards him, but the rest of the horde had swarmed her. Furious, she lashed out in all directions, drawing on reserves she hadn’t known she had. She had lost Seranni to the darkspawn already; she would not lose Nathaniel as well.

She threw them off in a blaze of power, hurling a fireball directly at the alpha from a mere five paces. It slammed back against the wall, its skin scorched and its armour shining red hot, but it just rolled back to its feet, snarling at her. Nathaniel was on the ground, the front of his armour savaged and slick with blood, and Velanna threw another blast of flame, then another, a relentless advance, and then before the darkspawn could recover she snatched Nathaniel from its grip, dragging him with a ferocious, relentless strength into the only sanctuary she had: the altar room of the Avvar god, behind her.

The darkspawn swarmed forwards, but she tore a blast of rock from the floor beneath them, hurling the leaders back into their fellows. With a last burst of strength, she slammed the heavy wooden doors, then hurled more stone at them, and yet more stone, until she had a barricade a foot thick across the lower half of the doors. Wailing their fury, the darkspawn threw themselves against it, but the doors didn’t budge.

They were safe. Without another thought, she dropped her staff, scrambling for Nathaniel.

“Nathaniel! You’d better not be dead, don’t you dare be dead—”

He wasn’t. Coughing weakly, he struggled to sit up, bracing himself against the base of the statue. Velanna collapsed to her knees in relief beside him, hands frantic as she helped him steady himself. “Are you alright?!”

“I’m fine, my lady,” he said, then coughed again.

“You’re covered in blood!” Velanna snapped. “Lie still. I need to look at this wound.”

His leather armour was in scraps across his torso. She peeled it back, already knowing she wouldn’t like what she saw, and had to fight down a wave of horror at the savagery of his wounds. Claws had torn across his chest and bite marks covered his shoulder. If he weren’t a Warden and immune to the worst of the taint, he’d have been a dead man; as it was, he might still be if she couldn’t stop the bleeding. Hands shaking, Velanna summoned the dregs of her magic, pushing a healing spell out the tips of her fingers.

She hadn’t hoped for much, and still it didn’t do as much as she’d hoped. The bleeding slowed to a sluggish trickle, but the cuts were still there, stark against clammy skin—and who knew what kind of internal bleeding he had suffered. Velanna wanted to scream, wanted to strike out in her rage, but she contained herself. She could do this. She just had to focus.

She took a deep breath and tried again, the green glow of healing magic flaring briefly around her hands—and then it was gone. The bleeding stopped, but still the cuts were raw and red. A third time, scraping the very depths of her mana, left him still looking no better. Blinking back furious tears she prepared herself for a fourth attempt. She didn’t know how much more she could give.

Nathaniel caught her hand before she could cast another spell. “Velanna,” he said softly. “It’s alright. You’ve done enough.”

“I have _not_ —” she cried.

“You have,” he said, his voice surprisingly firm for the severity of his injuries. “I’ll be fine. We’re safe in here for now, and the Warden-Commander is coming. We can wait it out for a bit longer.”

Behind her, Velanna could hear the sound of the darkspawn battering at the door, but the wood held strong and her stone barricade had shown no sign of budging. Nathaniel was right. If they could just hold on in their little stronghold, they might yet be able to get out of this.

“I wish—” she began, and had to swallow around a catch in her throat. “If I was just better at healing—”

“It can’t be helped,” Nathaniel said, his voice still infuriatingly gentle. He dug into his belt pouch, pulling out a bottled poultice. “Here,” he said, pushing it into her hands. “Can you apply this for me?”

She did, fighting down the tremor in her hands, doing the best she could with no bandages or water.

Nathaniel’s eyes were on her face when she finished. “You look exhausted, my lady. Do you have any more lyrium?”

Velanna shook her head, her voice tight. “I used it up in the fight.” There was no use cursing herself for that: if she hadn’t drunk it then, she wouldn’t have had the power to get them out at all.

Nathaniel just nodded. “You should try to get some rest.”

Velanna bristled. “And what about you?” she said. “If I fall asleep and you get worse—”

“I’ll be alright,” he said. “I can wake you if I need anything. We’re fine for now. You need to keep your strength up.” He smiled weakly. “I’m certainly not in any shape to fight.”

Velanna wasn’t entirely satisfied with that, but he was right: she was exhausted, and he was in no condition to defend himself. Only one of those could be cured with sleep; better to rest now while she had the chance.

Outside, the darkspawn had stopped slamming themselves against the door. She suspected something nefarious, but she couldn’t very well do anything about it without opening the door again, and that was out of the question. So instead she resolved to be grateful for the reprieve in the ominous thudding, and curled up as best she could on the floor of the shrine, the line of her back pressed against Nathaniel’s leg.

As she let her eyes drift closed, she realized for the first time that the brazier was still lit, flames merrily burning at the feet of the Avvar god with only that thin thread of magic for fuel.

* * *

Velanna found herself standing on the edge of an ancient forest: great trees at her back, plains stretching out in rippling gold ahead of her, and not far away, the outlines of the Avvar village. She made an exasperated noise in her throat.

“Not this again,” she said. “I don’t have time for this!”

“Do you not?” said a familiar voice. “It seems to me that you are in some trouble.”

She turned, coming face to face with the Avvar god-spirit. He was seated on a nearby log, sharpening a copper spear with long slow strokes of a whetstone.

Velanna folded her arms. “You again? I told you to leave me alone!”

He smiled, implacably patient as he continued to blatantly humour her. “And yet you sleep now at the foot of my altar.”

“That doesn’t mean anything,” she snapped. “We just needed a safe spot to get away from the darkspawn. It has nothing to do with you!”

“It is my hold,” the spirit said. “You have come to my shrine for safety. It has everything to do with me.”

Velanna huffed an irritated breath.

He smiled at that, considering her with another uncanny tilt of the head. “I can help, if you desire. If you prove yourself before my hold you will have my favour against your enemies.” His voice hardened. “I would no more have these foul creatures in my hold than you would have them attacking you.”

But Velanna shook her head. “I told you,” she said. “I won’t make any deals with you.”

The spirit gazed at her wonderingly. “How is it you can be?” he said. “A shaman, but one who will not deal with gods? It is never thus.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Velanna said.

For a long moment he just looked at her—long enough that she began to fidget uncomfortably under his gaze. “No, perhaps you do not,” he said at last. “I am called Stigr. What is the name of the shaman who will not speak to spirits?”

“Why should I tell you?”

Unhurriedly, the spirit stowed his whetstone, getting to his feet and slinging the spear over his shoulder with a casual grace. He crossed to her, looking down from a height of nearly seven feet. Suddenly conscious of the power in his frame, Velanna shrank back, but he didn’t make any hostile moves, only reaching out slowly to lift her chin with a light touch.

“I am not your enemy,” he said quietly. “Your enemy is out there.”

Velanna blinked, then glared, jerking her chin away. “Out where?”

“You must wake,” Stigr said. “When you wish my help, you need only call. They are my enemy as well.”

“What are you talking about?!”

“If you will insist on walking alone, you must go,” the spirit said. He smiled faintly. “Good fortune.”

* * *

Velanna woke with a jolt. Nathaniel was still next to her, tense and alert, all his focus centred on the door. On the other side the darkspawn were clawing at the wood; as she looked on she could see it buckling in its frame.

She scrambled to her feet, driven by a panicked fury. She would not die like this, cowering and trapped in a tiny room. She would not let them take Nathaniel, not while there was yet breath in her body. She grabbed her staff just as the upper part of the door began to splinter, and without thinking sent a jet of flame streaking for the gap.

She felt like she’d been scraped raw, but it worked. The darkspawn reeled back with a screech. Not letting herself think about what this would do to her magical reserves, she hurled spell after spell through at them—walking bombs and death hexes and curses of mortality, as many as she could summon up. Then with a final surge of power she slammed her hands into the doors, summoning an explosion of woven roots out of the wood, instantly filling the holes with the swell of new growth.

The world went grey around the edges. Staggering back, she sat down hard, bending her head to her knees as she fought to maintain consciousness.

“Velanna!” Nathaniel said. There was the scrape of leather on stone, and then she felt his hand on her shoulder. “Are you alright?”

“I’m fine!” she snapped. She took a deep breath, forcing herself upright, then added in a more normal tone, “I’m fine. How long was I asleep for?”

Nathaniel sat back, his face grey under the strain of even that small movement. “Not long,” he said. “A couple of hours, by my count.”

A sick wave of dread roiled in Velanna’s stomach. Only a couple of hours, and Nathaniel already looked like that—

“It’ll be hours still before the other Wardens show up. The messenger may not have even reached Vigil’s Keep yet,” she said numbly. “I don’t know if the door will hold that long.”

“Velanna,” Nathaniel said seriously, “if you have the chance to get out—you should take it.”

“What are you saying?!”

“Try to be reasonable—”

“I’m not leaving you behind!” she said.

“You won’t be able to get me out with you,” he said, his voice even and matter-of-fact. “If it comes down to it, if the choice is between running or dying with me, you should run. Velanna, I can’t draw my bow, I’m not even sure I can walk. And I’m pretty sure my wounds are only getting worse.”

All the anger drained out of her at that, leaving only a swelling anxiety. “Why didn’t you say anything? Let me see them!”

Nathaniel nodded, turning his body towards her with a wince. “I haven’t wanted to look at it,” he said. “But it doesn’t feel good.”

Velanna examined him, her heart sinking. He was right. He may have been immune to the taint, but he wasn’t immune to ordinary infection, and the wounds were inflamed and hot to the touch. Worse, some of the cuts had reopened, and blood trickled steadily down his chest, turning his entire torso into a gory mess. She cleaned them out as best she could, washing them out with a second poultice before applying a third, but it was a poor consolation, and they both knew it.

Nevertheless, Nathaniel seemed to relax a bit under her touch, and he settled back against the statue with a weary sigh. “Thank you,” he said. “I’m glad of the comfort.”

“Stop talking like you’re going to die,” Velanna snapped.

He looked at her then, too understanding, and said, “My lady, I’m not optimistic of my chances.”

“No!” Velanna said. “I’m keeping you alive and we’re both getting out of here! You hear me?!”

“It’s okay,” Nathaniel said gently.

“Creators!” she cried. “How can you just—just sit there and accept it?!”

“I’ve had plenty of time to think about it while you slept,” he said. “I knew this could happen when I was recruited. We all did. We were never promised a long life—just a chance to make a difference. I know the Commander will look after my sister and her family,” he added. “I’ve made my peace with everything else. All that’s left is…”

He trailed off, his eyes lingering on her face, and Velanna’s breath froze in her throat. “What?” she said, trying to inject some defiance into her voice. It still came out thin and shaky.

Nathaniel cupped her chin, running his calloused thumb along the line of her jaw. “I had wondered if it might be kinder not to say anything,” he said quietly. “But the truth is I don’t think I could willingly go to the Maker’s side without having told you how I feel. I suppose it’s selfish of me.”

Without quite knowing how, Velanna found herself trembling. “What are you saying?” she whispered.

“Velanna…,” Nathaniel said fondly, and then they were kissing.

The strength of feeling this summoned up in her was overwhelming. She wanted to scream. She wanted to hit something. But that would have meant having to stop kissing Nathaniel, and everything in her rebelled at the very thought. She had barely kissed anyone before, had no idea what she was doing, but his hands were gentle on her jaw and she was clinging to him with all she had and it must have hurt but he didn’t seem to care, this stupid insufferable human, and how could he _do_ this to her—

She broke away, gasping for breath, and immediately buried her face in his hair. “You—you are _infuriating_ ,” she spat. “How can you just—you idiotic—foolish—and did you really think I’d let you get away with doing that and then _leaving_ me?”

He laughed softly. “No, I suppose not.”

She drew back to glare at him properly. “You,” she said, “are _not_ allowed to die.”

Nathaniel just looked at her, his grey eyes dark and intent and unfathomable. “Yes,” he breathed. “I will obey your orders to the best of my ability.”

Velanna glowered, searching his face for signs that he was making fun, but he seemed, as ever, to be sincere. He always seemed entirely sincere—even when he said absurd, utterly impossible things as if they were perfectly ordinary, as if he wasn’t making her want to break things with his incomprehensible gentleness. “Well… good,” she said. “Now kiss me again.”

“As my lady commands,” he said, and he did.

* * *

She woke from a doze some time later, startled to find she had fallen asleep. It was impossible to say how much time had passed, but the light seemed dimmer—the brazier, finally, having started to burn itself down. Nathaniel was asleep next to her, one hand twined loosely with hers. He hadn’t moved; what had woken her?

There was a crack of wood. With a sick dread settling in her stomach, she turned to look at the door.

“Nathaniel,” she said, nudging his shoulder. “Wake up. They’re coming.”

He didn’t respond.

“Nathaniel!”

Still he said nothing, his head lolling weakly against her shoulder. Suddenly frantic, she checked his pulse, fingers searching until she felt the telltale thump of his heartbeat, slow and sluggish in his throat. He was still alive, but likely not for long. And with the darkspawn breaking their way in, his remaining lifespan might have been measured in minutes.

There was a splintering sound behind her, and suddenly the rattle and growl of the creatures breathing was that much louder. She could hear them screeching their celebration outside as slowly they began tearing at the fist-sized hole in the door. She grabbed her staff, sending a burst of flame through the opening, but that only deterred them for a moment. They could tell she was getting weaker.

Fighting down panic, Velanna tried to think through her exhaustion. She was out of lyrium, nearly out of magic, and out of options. If the darkspawn got in, she didn’t know how she’d be able to stop them from killing her, let alone defend Nathaniel.

There was a stir of air from the hole in the door, and the brazier flared once, throwing the statue of the Avvar god briefly into an almost lifelike relief.

Velanna stared at it. It was just a statue, with a smoothly carved body and a nearly featureless face, but in that moment it seemed to breathe with Stigr’s presence. How had she thought she could avoid him? He was everywhere in this room. And he had said to call him when she needed his help. Well, she needed help now—but was she really desperate enough to make a deal with a spirit?

She looked down to Nathaniel, still unconscious at her feet, and then to the door, and decided—in terror—that she was.

If she was going to do it, she would waste no time. She seated herself cross-legged in the furthest corner from the door, dragging Nathaniel into her arms and arranging herself with her staff in front of them both in defence. She had just enough power left to put up a barrier. If the darkspawn got in, it might hold them off for just long enough to make a difference.

That was all the time she could take. Her voice shaking, she called out to Stigr.

For a moment nothing happened, and then an unnatural wind spun around the chamber. The statue seemed to come to life, stepping down from the plinth, light of foot and impossibly real. He turned to look at her, satisfaction in his eyes. “So,” he said. “I see the shaman who will not speak to spirits has chosen to speak with me after all.”

Velanna could hear the howls of the darkspawn on the other side of the door. She forced herself not to snap at him. “I need your help,” she said.

“Yes,” the spirit said, as though it were self-evident. Perhaps it was. “Are you prepared to complete my trial?”

“I’ll do whatever I have to,” Velanna grit out between her teeth. “Just promise me you’ll save Nathaniel.”

“You do not ask for yourself?”

She laughed bitterly. “I know better than to expect to get out of a deal with a spirit alive,” she said. “Save. Him.”

But Stigr just shook his head. “I can open the path, no more,” he said. “It is you who will have to save him.”

“Then what good are you?!” Velanna yelled.

“I can open the path,” he repeated. “If you are worthy to walk it. Come,” he said, and held out his hand to her.

Velanna hesitated for only a moment before she reached out to take it.

* * *

She was standing deep in the woods, utterly alone. The trees around her were enormous, primeval, reaching up impossibly high into nothingness. She couldn’t see the sky, but she had never more clearly been walking in the Beyond.

There was no sign of the spirit.

“Stigr!” Velanna shouted. “This isn’t funny!”

There was no answer.

“Stigr!” Her voice echoed off the distant treetops. “How am I supposed to complete your stupid trial if I don’t even know what it is?!”

Stigr’s voice echoed out of the woods around her, seeming to come from the trees and the earth itself. “Looking Lykke, lost and lonesome, wanders wary through the wood,” he recited. “Follows in her father’s footprints, seeking where he once had stood.”

“Are you serious?” Velanna demanded.

“Father was a famous tracker,” Stigr continued, “paths to ponder, home to find; Lykke’s hunt has brought her hither, out among the roots that wind.”

She groaned.

“Here the hunter finds a history, kindred’s heart to lead the way—follows father’s spirit homeward, comes at last to light of day.”

“Yes, alright,” Velanna said. “Just get to the point.”

There was laughter in Stigr’s echoing voice now, and Velanna cursed the impulse that had led her to light his brazier. “You like looking Lykke would find your way to kin and kind,” he said, “Seek the path and do not stray—pathways to yourself will bind.”

Velanna waited, but he seemed to be finished. “Seek the path,” she muttered. She cast around, looking for the signs of a trail and already knowing what she would find. Just as she’d suspected, there was none—not even the sort of path walked by animals.

“Fine,” she said, biting down a frustrated growl. “You want me to traipse through this entire stupid forest? Fine. I won’t let you beat me.”

She picked a direction and started walking.

Velanna was Dalish, and was used to moving through the woodlands—but this wood seemed designed specifically to make her scream. She scrambled over hillocks, sliding down on the other side into dips between roots that were taller than she was. She picked her way around trees and through great creeping brambles, her head spinning when she tried to fix her gaze on a point of reference. It was impossible to tell if she was going in a straight line: the trees were so large she could barely see twenty feet in any direction, and the entire forest was an incomprehensible tangle, with trees growing sideways and branches appearing from nowhere and nothing at all making sense. She soon lost all sense of how long she had been walking. It could have been five minutes or five hours.

It was something stupid that finally broke her. She tripped over a root that hadn’t been there a moment before and landed hard in the dirt, scraping her forehead against a protruding branch. She actually did scream then, and without being quite aware of what she was doing she flung out her hands, fire bursting from her fingertips and scorching the bushes before her before blooming up into an enormous, impossible shape.

Velanna could only stare at the huge tree, shaped from nothing so much as flame, that had exploded from her hands.

“Creators,” she breathed. “Of course.”

This was the Beyond. It was shaped by memory and thought and will. And she was a mage. She could handle this.

She stopped, taking a deep breath and trying to remember the meditation exercises Keeper Ilshae had taught her as a child. Letting go of her anger had never worked for her, but she could _use_ it. Furiously she balled up her frantic fear, her frustration, everything that wasn’t the shining, utter sureness that she was going to make it out of this mess, and threw it all away.

She opened her eyes, holding onto that certainty. She was going to get out of here. She was going to find her way back to Nathaniel. They were both going to be fine. All she needed was a path.

She didn’t hesitate; she just started walking. There would be a path. She would trust in that.

And there was.

She could feel the forest reacting to her, roots and brambles rising up to impede her progress. She called up her own vines in response, the magic coming easily, flowing through her with none of the exhaustion she was fighting in the physical world. Here, it was simplicity in itself. She knew how to command plants, so they obeyed. She knew she was going to get out, so she would.

She didn’t even notice the trees thinning at first until abruptly she tumbled out onto the plain. Stigr was waiting for her. She didn’t think he was any taller, but he seemed somehow unfathomably large, as if the stars themselves were caught in his horns. For the first time Velanna wondered if the Avvar might not have been right to call him a god.

“Seek the path and do not stray—pathways to yourself will bind,” he said. “Well walked. The trial is yours.”

He reached out then to take her hands, and Velanna found herself wondering how he could have seemed so enormous a mere moment before. He was just a man—seven feet tall and crowned with antlers, but nothing but a man.

“You have found the path,” he said, “and so there will always be a path for you. The shaman who will not speak to spirits has won my favour.”

“Velanna,” she blurted. “My name is Velanna.”

He smiled at that, squeezing her fingers once before letting them go. “This is a gift that you have given me,” he said. “I will treasure it. And now you must go, and not waste the gift that I have given you. Farewell, Velanna,” he said, holding her gaze. “Remember me.”

Velanna swallowed once, and nodded, and opened her eyes.

* * *

She opened her eyes.

She was still sitting with Nathaniel in her arms, her staff braced securely in front of them. Her shield had held. He was still breathing. The statue was back on the plinth, as if it had never moved.

And the darkspawn had nearly torn their way through the door.

Horror welled up in her throat. Was this it? Had she made some deal with a spirit that she still didn’t understand only to be abandoned to her fate? Had it all been for nothing?

Well—if this was it, at the very least Nathaniel wouldn’t die alone.

There was a faint echo of laughter from the Beyond, and then a hole quite simply melted into the wall.

The time to second-guess herself was long past. Her legs were stiff, but she forced herself upright faster than she ever had, holstering her staff and throwing Nathaniel’s bow over her shoulder. Then she braced herself under his arm, dragged him to his feet, and started for the opening.

He half-roused at that, eyelids fluttering feverishly as he struggled to get his feet under him. “Velanna?” he mumbled. “What’s going on?”

“We’re getting out of here,” she grit out. “So don’t you dare die on me now.”

Behind them she heard the door splinter open with a final crash as she walked into the dark.

Stigr’s path was black and earthy, smelling of the great unreal wildness of his primeval forest. There was no light but a faint luminescence threaded through the ceiling, but Velanna was grateful for it all the same—and doubly so when entrance closed itself behind her with a solid finality, cutting off the advance of the darkspawn and the light of the brazier all at once. “Too late for regrets,” she said, and started forward, hauling Nathaniel along as well as she could and struggling not to stumble under his much larger frame.

It was as impossible to judge time here as it had been in the forest of the Beyond. Velanna stopped trying almost immediately, just concentrating on grimly putting one foot in front of the other. It was hard to tell in the dark, but the tunnel seemed to be digging itself as she walked. It was certainly closing itself behind her. She kept going, resolutely not thinking about being trapped beneath the earth and at the mercy of a spirit’s pathway.

At last it opened onto brightness and spat her out into a deserted room. She winced, squinting through the torchlight, struggling to recognize where she was—until she abruptly managed to place the staircase and, across from it, the collapsed rubble of the hallway. They were still in the Avvar chambers.

She could still feel swarms of darkspawn very close. They weren’t safely out of it yet. She started across the room, making for the stairs, but was only halfway there when there was a shift in the rubble and a genlock burst out, tearing straight for her.

She was out of mana. She couldn’t reach Nathaniel’s bow. She was going to die to a single, stupid darkspawn.

And then a dwarf came out of nowhere with a flash of silverite blades and cut the creature down.

“Sigrun!” Velanna said, almost collapsing in relief. “Thank the Creators!”

“Hi, Velanna!” Sigrun chirped, planting her boot on the darkspawn’s chest and tugging her axe from its head. She turned to look at her, her face falling slightly as she took in their condition. “Wow. Nathaniel doesn’t look good. Glad we got here when we did.”

“You don’t know the half of it,” Velanna said fervently. “You brought reinforcements?”

“Commander’s upstairs chewing out Lord Guy,” Sigrun said cheerfully. “Alistair’s with her. Everyone else is securing the rest of the estate—darkspawn came up a bunch of other holes while you were out of commission.” She turned to eye the collapsed hallway, with its genlock-sized hole and the massing thrum of darkspawn behind it. “When you get Nathaniel to the healers, could you send some more of us down? Something tells me there’s going to be a lot more darkspawn in here very soon.”

“On it,” Velanna said, already making for the stairs.

A pair of soldiers ran up her as she emerged into the hall, taking one look at Nathaniel and lifting him bodily from her shoulders. “Glad you’re alive, Warden,” one of them said. “We’ll get him to the healers.”

Velanna didn’t want to let him go, but she had to get reinforcements for Sigrun, and go find the Commander to tell her she wasn’t dead, and she was already on the verge of physical collapse, so she just nodded, giving Nathaniel a lingering look before the soldiers spirited him away.

She found Warden-Commander Tabris in Lord Guy’s sitting room, apparently still in the process of tearing a strip out of the noble in question. Alistair was standing behind her, his expression an odd mixture of worry and the concerted effort not to show how amused he was. Lord Guy was looking extremely cowed, which Velanna found very personally satisfying.

“Seriah,” she called, her voice cracking.

The Commander turned, her hard-lined face lighting up in obvious relief. “Velanna! You’re alive!” Then she took in her obvious exhaustion and the blood and gore on her armour, and her expression darkened. “Nathaniel?”

“He’s alive,” Velanna hastened to reassure her. “With the healers.”

“Praise the Maker,” Seriah said, all the tension going out of her shoulders.

“Sigrun’s in the basement,” Velanna said. “She needs reinforcements—that’s where the darkspawn first broke through, and there are still a lot of them down there.”

The Commander gestured to Alistair, and he fell in behind her. “We’ll go. You need to get to the healers.”

“What?” Velanna said. “No, I’m fine, I just need some lyrium, I can still help—”

Seriah put a hand on her shoulder, silencing her protests. “I’ve worried about you enough for one day,” she said. “Now, you’re going to get yourself looked at, you’re going to do what the healers tell you, and you’re going to sleep.”

Velanna wanted to protest—she really did—but sleep was far too tempting to argue with. “Yes, ser,” she said, not entirely pleasantly.

“Good,” Seriah said. “And then after you’ve rested up you’re going to tell me just how you got yourself and Nathaniel out of there. The soldiers seemed convinced there was no hope.”

The memory of Stigr’s laugh sounded in her ears, and Velanna almost groaned. “You aren’t going to believe it,” she said. “I don’t think I believe it, and I was there.”

“Hmm,” Seriah said. “I’ll let you know once you’ve told me. Now _sleep_ , Velanna. Come on, Alistair.”

“Coming,” Alistair said. He flashed Velanna a grin. “Glad you’re not dead. We’ll see you later.”

And then they were gone. Velanna was left to make her way to the healers, who put her on a bed next to Nathaniel and told her they’d have someone check on her as soon as their current emergencies were dealt with. She was asleep before she had the chance to reply.

* * *

With the rest of the Wardens there to help, the darkspawn threat was swiftly contained. They routed the creatures from the estate, then sent sappers all along their various tunnels, systematically taking them out as far back as the Deep Roads. Lord Guy was so grateful—and so terrified of once again incurring the Commander’s not-inconsiderable wrath—that he sent them on their way with a sizeable donation of both funds and provisions, and the Grey Wardens returned to Vigil’s Keep with several new wagons in tow.

Velanna missed the rest of the fight. By the time she woke up it had all been dealt with save the cleanup. She had had her scrapes bandaged and been pronounced healthy, barring a case of mana exhaustion that could only be healed with time, and firmly turned out of the healers’ rooms. That she hadn’t stopped hovering at Nathaniel’s bedside from the moment she had awoken may have had something to do with that.

She hadn’t seen him since their return home. It hadn’t been deliberate—she had also been banished from the healers’ wing at the Vigil, to start with—but the longer it went on, the more the doubts crept in. Had he really meant everything he had said to her? Or had he only kissed her because he had thought he was going to die? What if he regretted it? What if he thought she was a fool for wondering? Even the idea of asking if he had been serious made her flush to the tips of her ears with a furious embarrassment.

She was taking out her frustrations on an innocent training dummy when he found her.

“Sigrun said you were out here,” he said.

“That traitor,” Velanna muttered. She couldn’t bring herself to look at him.

Nathaniel leaned carefully against the fence post, still moving gingerly around his shoulder. “I wanted to know how you were doing,” he said. He paused. “You haven’t come to see me since we got back.”

“The healers wouldn’t let me,” Velanna said resentfully. She darted a glance up at him. “And I thought—maybe you wouldn’t want me to.”

“What?” Nathaniel said. He sounded genuinely puzzled. “Why would you think that?”

Forgetting herself, Velanna lifted her chin to glare at him. As usual, anger came easily; it was certainly easier to deal with than the horrible fragile feeling sitting in her chest. “You thought you were going to die,” she said. “We both did. I understand if maybe we—did some things we might regret, now that you’re alright.”

Nathaniel hesitated. “Are you… saying you regret it?”

“No!” she said, vehement. She’d have done it all again in an instant if it meant keeping him alive: the mana exhaustion, the panicked desperation, all of it—even the deal with Stigr, who had made an appearance in every dream she had had since that night. It had all been worth it. It would still be worth it, even if Nathaniel never wanted to see her again. It was enough that he was alive.

At least, that was what she kept telling herself.

“No,” she repeated. “I don’t regret it. But I know I’m—not the easiest person to deal with. And I… understand… if I’m a less attractive prospect when you’re not on the verge of death.”

Nathaniel stopped her with a hand on her cheek. Somewhere in the middle of her confession she had looked away from him; now she raised her eyes to his again, and found him looking back at her with that infuriating, gods-cursed patience. “Is that truly what you think of me?” he said gently.

For a moment she could only stare at him, and then the words tumbled out of her in a rush. “No,” she said. “No, it’s not, that was unfair of me. I—I apologize.”

“Oh, Velanna,” he said, and drew her into his arms. Hesitantly, she let her head rest against his collar. She could feel the bandages he was still wearing under his shirt, could hear his heartbeat thumping steady and strong against her ear, and for a horrifying moment she wondered just what lengths she’d have been willing to go if she hadn’t been able to save him.

“I’m glad that you were there with me,” he said quietly. She could feel his voice rumbling in his chest. “You, and no one else. I certainly wouldn’t have kissed anyone else.” He stroked his hand over her hair, playing with the loose pieces that fell around her ear. “I’ve always known you could be prickly,” he said. “It doesn’t bother me.”

“Really?” she said. “You mean that?”

He kissed the tip of her ear. “It is one of your most endearing qualities, my lady.”

Velanna could feel her cheeks heating up, and before she could stop herself she struck him—carefully—on his good shoulder. “You can’t just say things like that!”

“If you want me to stop,” Nathaniel said, “it is perfectly within your power to make me do so.”

Velanna turned in his arms, resting her palms flat against the swell of his chest as she glowered up at him—or tried to. “Insufferable shemlen,” she said.

“Maybe so,” he said. “But I’m your insufferable shemlen, my lady.”

“Shut up,” she said, and leaned up to kiss him.

**Author's Note:**

> Looking Lykke, lost and lonesome, wanders wary through the wood,  
> Follows in her father’s footprints, seeking where he once had stood.  
> Father was a famous tracker, paths to ponder, home to find;  
> Lykke’s hunt has brought her hither, out among the roots that wind.  
> Here the hunter finds a history, kindred’s heart to lead the way—  
> Follows father’s spirit homeward, comes at last to light of day.  
> You like looking Lykke would  
> Find your way to kin and kind:  
> Seek the path and do not stray—  
> Pathways to yourself will bind.


End file.
